Advertisement
Published: March 31st 2012
Edit Blog Post
Following a few good days of sunshine the rain came and did not let up for the best part of 3 weeks.....Not bad for an Australian summer time. On a scarce good day we managed to do the touristy thing in Brisbane City taking in the sights and the suburbs such as Fortitude Valley, the West End and South Bank complete with its fake beach by the Brisbane River, surrounded by palm trees and complete with surf life savers and the obligatory red and yellow flags; it really is quite nice and isn’t half as tacky as it sounds. On another good day we ventured up to Mount Kootha with my Aunt and Uncle and the two lads. The views over Brisbane were perfect with a rare crystal clear day; we could see the Great Dividing Range to the North which stretches most of the way up the east coast.
As it was still school holidays the boys decided to take us to Cedar Creek which was only about a 30 minute drive away, the place turned out to be a narrow rocky gully where the water had forged its way through over the years. There were waterfalls, plunge pools
and natural slides on the slippery rock faces and in the narrower sections there were fast flowing rapids. The water was crystal clear and totally freezing but we all ended up in for a swim and right underneath the big waterfall. Not a bad place to have on the door step!
When the weather finally cleared up for a prolonged spell we joined the family on a trip down the Gold Coast to Coolangatta for a surf lifesaving carnival, which is a pretty big deal over here. The events consist of ocean swimming through the surf, surfboard paddling, soft sand running and combinations of all three in the iron man, it’s pretty hard core and both of the lads compete. The weekend was perfect and we were on the beach for 2 solid days soaking up the rays and trying (trying being the key word here!) to body surf without rain, bonus!
We spent another day ay Bribie island. Bribie island isthe smallest and most northernly of the three major sand island forming the coastline sheltering Brisbane and is actually connect to the mainland by a bridge over the river. It was glorious sunshine and we spent the
day on the beach with a picnic. On the way home in the evening we decided to take a detour to Redcliffe which is home to Morgan’s Fish and Chip shop. We had only yet experienced one fish and chip shop in Australia and Morgan’s was very reputable. I opted for the barramundi and Nat the flake (common name shark!)......they were awesome, perfect way to finish the day!
Australia Zoo was our next foray, it’s the home of the late crocodile hunter Steve Irwin and his family so there’s clearly a lot of crocs but also a huge collection of native animals and stuff that would eat you alive. The koalas and Kangaroos were close enough to touch but that’s about all you would want to get close to really. We’ve heard lots about Wombats from a certain family member and we managed to see two different kinds of these at the zoo!
We managed to bag a cheap day trip out to Morton Island on Spreets. It’s a sand island off the coast of Brisbane and is home to the Tangalooma Wrecks, a marine reserve based around a collection of semi submerged maritime vessels, some over 100
years old. The place is teaming with fish and sea life so the main draw for us was the snorkelling and despite the large numbers of people in the water, the place did not disappoint. Drifting in and out of the rusty old ships meant there was something new around every corner. For the remainder of the day our package included stand up paddle boarding which I was useless at, Archery, Croquet, Golf and Kayaking. We didn’t manage to fit everything in but we left having had a good and busy day.
Since we arrived in Brisbane we were looking for work to fund the rest of our trip and initially there were many promising leads from people who sounded well connected but essentially turned out to be all talk. After over 6 weeks and a couple of trials I managed to bag a roll at Pizza Capers for 10 hours a week and Nat was still trying. As there was nothing solid in the pipeline we decided to book a cycling holiday out to New Zealand’s North Island on the 4
th of March, before it got too cold to cycle and camp.
2 weeks before we were
due to depart I managed to get a full time role at University of Queensland and 3 days before we were due to depart to New Zealand Nat managed to get a job in an Inner City Restaurant on nearly full time hours...Typical but both our jobs were open for us when we were to return.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.137s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 46; dbt: 0.0824s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb